Lola Flash

Overview

Photo: Christa Holka

"Photography has a way of keeping people alive"

Lola Flash (b. 1959, Montclair, NJ) is a queer photographer and activist that has been a pioneering voice in photography for more than four decades. Flash’s multifaceted practice has evolved through numerous series, each with a unique formal and conceptual focus. Beginning with their iconic “Cross Colour” series from the 1980s and 1990s—which utilized inverted colors to document queer culture as part of ACT UP, in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic—this exhibition traces a path through portraiture towards recent and ongoing series.

Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics, all of Flash’s work challenges preconceptions about gender and racism, and is firmly rooted in social justice advocacy for marginalized peoples. Flash became involved with LGBTQ+ rights advocacy in the 1980s amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic, participating in activism with the group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and the associated affinity group ART+. Amid this political upheaval, Flash developed new techniques to invert the colors of their photographs, resulting in the “Cross Colour” series. Flash has envisioned the gesture as a fundamental disruption of how the audience engages with the image, obscuring legibility and forcing a different perspective. Light skinned people become dark, and dark skinned people become light. Night and day trade places, as do warm and cool tones. Flash “flips the script” and forces a fundamental change to how people view the world, and lends insight into the powerful, vulnerable, celebratory, and cathartic moments of 1980s and 1990s queer culture.

Flash has works in museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington D.C.; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Work is currently on view in MoMA as part of their permanent collection. Recent exhibitions have included Queer Lens: A History of Photography, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2025; Trust Me, at the Whitney, New York, 2024; and Lola Flash: SALT, What If Women Ruled the World? Part II, a solo at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece, 2024. Flash recently created a podcast in collaboration with MoMA Magazine titled My Friends Gave Me Their Love: Remembering New York City’s AIDS Crisis Together. Flash is a proud current member of Kamoinge, and is on the President of the board of Queer Art. Flash is recipient of awards including the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, 2025; the Visual AIDS Vanguard Award, 2024; a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, 2024; and two Art Matters Grants, 2021 and 2011. Flash holds a BA in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore, and an MA in Photography from London College of Printing, London, UK. Flash lives and works in New York.

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Podcast Interview

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Works

The Blue Boy, Fire Island (Cross Colour Series), circa 1994
Paris Pride (Cross-Colour Series), circa 1990
Self-Portrait with Balls, Bodiam Castle, UK, ca. 1991
Eiffel Tower (from Cross Colour Series), ca. 1990
Cow Girl (Cross Colour Series), c. 1994
BJ, London, UK (Cross Colour Series), c. 1991
Absolute Vodka with P-Town Monument, Provincetown, Mass (Cross Colour Series), c. 1990
Betye Saar (SALT Series), 2025
The Landing, Palmarin, Senegal (syzygy, the vision Series), 2024
The Little Prince (syzygy, the vision Series), 2024
Your Silence Will Not Protect You, 2023
Emolsa (unsung fire island Series), 2021
Divinity, Brighton, UK (syzygy, the vision Series), 2020
I Pray, Manhattan, NY, (syzygy, the vision Series), 2020
I Pray, Manhattan, NY, (syzygy, the vision Series), 2020
I Pray, Manhattan, NY, (syzygy, the vision Series), 2020
Amy Sherald ([sur]passing Series), 2019
Robin Cloud (LEGENDS Series), 2017
Utah, New York (surmise Series), 2017
Nikolai, Trinidad ([sur]passing Series), 2016
Miss Kimberly, London (surmise Series), 2011
Miss Kimberly, London (surmise Series), 2011
Carrie Mae Weems ([sur]passing Series), 2008
Tanya (surmise Series), 2008
Tanya (surmise Series), 2008
Thato ([sur]passing Series), 2002
Deer 2, Fire Island (Cross-Colour Series), 1994
A is for Aerial, Provincetown, Mass (Cross Colour Series and Gay to Z Series), 1993
Mermaid (Cross Colour Series), 1993
N is for Native American, Provincetown, Mass (Cross Colour Series and Gay to Z Series), 1993
Basking, Provincetown, Mass (Cross-Colour Series), 1988
Self Portrait, Washington, DC